Some believe that the tapes may contain previously unreleased material from the Beatles. The recordings were made during the famous “Get Back” sessions in 1969.  

The concept of the project was Paul McCartney’s brainchild. The idea was to film the band getting back to their roots by writing and recording music together with a finale’ of the group performing the new songs live in concert and releasing the recordings of the concert as an album. 

Unfortunately tensions within the band as well as the poor conditions of the theatre they were using to film the sessions sidetracked Paul’s idea and what happened instead was the camera captured a fly on the wall’s view of a band in the middle of breaking up. The Beatles tried to salvage the project by performing an impromptu concert on the roof of the Apple Records building. Even those plans were spoiled when Police forced the band to shut the concert down after only a few songs. 

The group shelved the film and album project and returned to their normal recording studio, Abbey Road, a few months later to record their final album together, 1969’s Abbey Road. 

The “Get back” sessions were later resurrected in two separate projects. One the film was culled and put together as the documentary that became “Let it Be” and producer Phil Spector rummaged through hundred of hours or tapes to put together the songs that made up the “Let it Be” album, which was released after the Beatles disbanded. 

Now over 30 years later Police have recovered over 500 tapes from those sessions and some believe that they contain songs that have never been heard by the public. The tapes were seized when detectives in England and The Netherlands arrested six people on Friday during a joint investigation into music bootleggers. 

"The tapes themselves are the only original recordings made and may contain material which has never been previously released," City of London police said in a statement. 

"This fact renders the tapes to be priceless to the record industry and collectors of Beatles memorabilia." 

Police believe that the tapes were stolen sometime in the 70’s and ended up in the hands of bootleggers. It appears that the recovered tapes belong to the British record company EMI and they are unsure at this point what will become of the tapes. The research to verify that they are in fact the original recordings from the “Get Back” session will take some time due to the volume of material recovered. But it is believed the tapes could possible contain “dozens” of complete songs as well as snippets of other unfinished tracks. 

more on The Beatles

Rant or Rave? Your turn, post you comments and thoughts on this news item. But hey keep it clean, we wouldn't want to have to wash your mouth out with Old Spice.

Fan Speak: